John H. Glenn Jr.

100 Years: Celebrating a Remarkable Life of Service

John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born July 18, 1921, and over the following decades, he forged a path of bravery, leadership, passion and commitment.

Selected by NASA as one of the first seven astronauts in the U.S. space program, Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962 in the Friendship 7 capsule. Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Ohio. He joined a space shuttle mission in 1998 at the age of 77, making him the oldest person to go into space, to conduct a series of experiments related to the health of older adults.

He chose Ohio State as a repository for his artifacts, and to encourage public service and public policy educational opportunities, he created the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at The Ohio State University. The institute became what is today the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

Join us in commemorating the 100th anniversary of Sen. John Glenn's birth!